


The Scent of Roses

by chainedtoacomet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 02:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainedtoacomet/pseuds/chainedtoacomet





	The Scent of Roses

“What the hell, right?” she said, gripping the knife wound in her gut as she dropped her trusty flask of whiskey to the side.  Pamela Barnes swallowed back the sour taste of her own fear.  “Everybody’s gotta go sometime.”

There were earnest words, then, coupled with looks full of regret.  The Winchesters dragged her into this mess, but she had been a willing participant.    Just as she had been when she gripped Dean’s scar and cast her sights on the creature who had burned her eyes clean out of her skull.  Pamela Barnes wished she had made better choices in her life.  Perhaps she would still have her vision. Perhaps she would not be lying on a cheap motel bedspread with blood pouring freely from her stomach.  Pamela wished she still had her eyes; she wanted to see the bright red of herself in her final moments.

The mind of the psychic was always full of the constant, cacophonous clatter of the world, with echoes from one side of the veil and the next reverberating through her at any given moment.  But in Pamela Barnes’ last second of life, silence fell, and she felt _warm_.  She knew should feel cold from the blood loss, but she seemed beyond that, now.  The Winchesters were no longer speaking; they were no longer there at all. 

A cool breeze flickered across skin that Pamela Barnes could no longer feel, and, for a moment, Pamela was certain she could detect the faint scent of roses on the air.

“Tessa, I presume,” Pamela said, turning to her right, unsurprised by the sight of the reaper, who had donned a pretty brunette’s visage.  It took Pamela a moment to register that she could actually _see_ the reaper, like some kind of final confirmation that her life was over, and the useless sockets where her eyes had once been were not responsible what she was seeing, now.

“That’s what they call me,” Tessa replied, giving Pamela a soothing smile.  “It’s one of my names, at least.”

“I’m sure you have a lot of those,” Pamela said as she stood up, heavy with the knowledge that it was not her physical body that rose from the bed.  _No, we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,_ she told herself.  “You didn’t have to get all dolled up on my account.”

“I can change my form if that makes you feel more comfortable,” Tessa said, her expression one of a sincere helpfulness that made Pamela sigh in defeat.

“This is it, then?” she asked.  “That’s all I get?”

“No, there’s more,” Tessa said, extending her hand.  “Just not here.”

Pamela stared at the hand that she knew was not made of flesh and blood, but rather a visage concealing the most undeniable truth of all creation.  Tessa was a concept, a reality, an epic finality; Tessa was _Death_.  Pamela Barnes had spent her life peering beyond the veil, using a gift she had never asked for to see into a side of the world she should never have been privy to.  She refused to be afraid, now. “Let’s do this, then,” she said, taking the reaper’s hand. 

Pamela had always imagined death would feel colder than this, but the touch of her hand in Tessa’s filled the psychic with the memory of warm sunshine on her shoulders at Lollapalooza ’94.  For a moment, Pamela let the same joy she had felt as she danced and swayed to the Flaming Lips wash over her as she entwined her fingers with the reaper’s.  In her last few seconds on the strange in-between of the earthly plane and the ether, Pamela could still detect the scent of roses.  


End file.
